Twitter answered a day later with its very own mobile photo filtering and enhancement app that should have dealt a huge blow to Facebook's mobile darling. While the numbers are not in yet, it would be surprising if either of last week's moves has a significant effect on Instagram's popularity.

The reason: Twitter went weak when they should have been going bold with this bit of news.

This isn't the time for Twitter to rest on its history and user base. They can strike a major blow to both Instagram and Facebook if they go on the offensive. So far, they haven't done much beyond getting some press and releasing this video:

The video is compelling. Unfortunately, it isn't getting much play. With under 140K views (ironic) and less press about their adding the feature than Instagram got for pulling their integration down from Twitter, they have not capitalized on any of the potential that this can bring.

Perhaps worse, they haven't added the features to Twitter.com itself on the PC. Mobile might be growing, but to ignore a huge differentiator between their service and Instagram is a mistake. With Instagram, everything has to happen through a mobile device. This has been a strength for them, but still alienates those who like to post images the old fashioned way. Twitter could have been a better service rather than another service.

It's not hard to see the benefits. In marketing, Twitter could completely replace Instagram if they positioned it properly. They aren't. They're putting it all out there with a whimper rather than the aggressive rallying call that it should have been.

There may still be things in the works, but the initial opportunity is already lost. They could run contests, highlight the best pictures, create a hashtag associated with the coolest uses of the tool, and any number of other promotional efforts that their marketing team could come up with that would be better than the few I just brainstormed in 40 seconds.

Twitter may have grown through understatement, but they are in a precarious time, one that requires changing the way they do things. Even though they continue to grow, they haven't experienced real growth as a platform for a long time. If they continue to stay stagnant and rely on understatement, they will fall from relevance faster than they rose to prominence.